by Bryce Edwards

March 2011

31 March 2011

There’s increasing focus on the National Government’s plans for spending cuts – especially those in the core public service. The criticisms are building – see, for example Hayden Donnell’s very good overview: Govt accused on ‘slash and burn’. On the Imperator Fish blog, the criticism is made that the cuts represent a government that is ‘devoid of imagination’ – see: The Imagination Deficit. Despite being sympathetic to spending cuts, the Dominion Post makes the interesting argument that the Government should make cuts to spending in the Beehive first, quoting Jim Bolger that ‘New Zealand needs no more than 12 to 15 Cabinet ministers’ instead of the present 28 ministers and all of their huge numbers of staff – see: Public sector cuts should start at top.

The Labour/Hughes/Goff saga rolls on however. And the most cutting commentary on the scandal comes once again from the left. Writing in The Wellingtonian, Gordon Campbell says in his column, A stunning fall from political grace, that the failures of Hughes and Goff are ‘almost inexplicable’. In terms of Goff, Campbell says his ‘behaviour was also appalling’ and ‘It was a quite extraordinary failure of leadership’. Campbell also laments that the whole affair will have a conservatising effect on public policy debate, saying that ‘Over the coming months, any legislation with a moral dimension will now offer an opportunity for the Hughes affair to be resurrected’, and that issues such as alcohol laws will be the victim of a conservative backlash. Vernon Small also has a worthwhile read on Labour’s current issues. He maintains that although the Labour leadership coup is now off, this is simply due to the lack of ‘someone prepared to accept the chalice nor a single challenger to rally behind’ and he says that ‘At one point last weekend reporters were even told of plans to send an emissary to Mr Goff to outline concerns about how he handled the Hughes affair’ – see: Goff needs the focus to be on the economy. Another useful read is David Farrar’s Labour’s choices which runs through the options for the caucus reshuffle that is now required due to Hughes’ departure. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

30 March 2011

Perhaps the Hughes scandal should have died by now, but its impact is still being strongly felt and its shockwaves continue to cause other problems for Labour, and therefore the broad issue is still dominating political discussion, reporting and analysis. Of course, the media have been reporting on yesterday’s Labour frontbench meeting in Dunedin. Claire Trevett’s two Herald pieces are worth reading: Goff insists party behind him and Goff and the frontbenchers suspiciously cheery.

Of course there are in fact other things happening in the political arena at the moment outside of scandal politics. Below there are links to numerous stories covering National’s public spending cuts and Christchurch earthquake reconstruction governance – hopefully these issues will also soon get some decent attention. But at the moment, while the Opposition party continues to bleed, this is unlikely. Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

29 March 2011

The Labour Party is in a very difficult situation – the nation’s major opinion leaders appear to be strongly against Goff remaining as leader of the Labour Party. The level of their critique is often severe. For example, TV3’s Duncan Garner has written a devastating evaluation of Goff and Labour today – see: Labour needs to roll Goff – blog. Vernon Small of the Dominion Post is nearly equally scathing, and says that ‘Business as usual is simply not an option’ for Goff – see: Phil Goff must act, as Helen Clark did. Similarly, today’s Editorial in the Dom Post doesn’t mince it’s words: ‘Goff's leadership should be over. The party he leads is bereft of energy and bereft of ideas. Instead of looking like a government in waiting it looks like a dysfunctional rabble’. Chris Trotter says that the Goff/King leadership is ‘fatally infected’ and that New Zealanders ‘will not vote for a party they believe to be morally compromised’.

Yet at this stage a leadership change seems on balance to be less than likely (although coups can sometimes be rather unpredictable). One of the crucial factors in the mix for a leadership coup appears to be the question of who could possibly replace Goff? The near-consensus amongst commentators seems to be that no one in Labour is currently up to the job – and that’s why Goff might well be quite safe in his position until after the election. But if he does happen to be rolled, there seems to be increasing speculation that Trevor Mallard might actually be the person to step in as the interim damage control leader – much in the way that Mike Moore was chosen to replace the also lame duck leader, Geoffrey Palmer. For a nice concise elaboration on this theory, see David Farrar’s Kiwiblog post, Is Mallard the man?. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

28 March 2011

Is the Darren Hughes scandal a bit of a beat up by the Labour Party’s opponents? After all, some of the strongest criticisms of Labour over the affair have been from rightwing bloggers like David Farrar. And the media can be expected to put the boot into any story that has the sort of salacious details that the Hughes drama has. Therefore what we might be seeing in this explosive scandal is really just a proxy for the forces of the Establishment and the rightwing of the country to lay into the forces of the left.

However this type of explanation just doesn’t add up if you look at who is criticising Phil Goff and the Labour Party over the scandal – because the group of critics definitely includes all sorts of leftwing, liberal and progressive commentators, activists and bloggers. David Farrar himself made this point very well today in a blog post entitled, The Left on Goff. In this post, Farrar summarises some of the key liberal or left figures that have been critical of Labour and Goff – it’s worth quoting at length:

Phil Goff is still maintaining that not only did he handle the Hughes situation correctly, not a single one of his colleagues have criticised him. Well, they are not technically colleagues, but lets have a look at what the left are saying: Tim Watkin says that Goff’s line about not intereing with a Police investigation is “spin” and that Goff had no plan for how to respond; Russell Brown flays Goff and says they are a “shambles”; Bomber at Tumeke says that if Labour are not questioning the leadership of Phil Goff, then they “are officially the most stoned Caucus in the history of the Westminster system”; Chris Trotter blogged that it is the moral duty of the Labour caucus to remove Goff if they don’t think he can lead them to victory; Matt McCarten says Goff’s performancee has been appalling; Lew at Kiwipolitico says that anyone who failed to understand the politics (like Goff did) of what happened “has no business running strategy for a Sunday book club, much less a political party which aspires to government”; Danyl at the Dim Post also rubbishes Goff’s claims of natural justice coming first, citing numerous examples to the contrary, and in another post says “in the UK they have a competent opposition party, while [Labour] are Really. Fucking. Terrible.”; Idiot/Savant at No Right Turns blogs that Goff has “established a consistent pattern of poor decision-making”; Robert Winter says “The onus is on our parliamentary caucus to provide us with that national leadership that we deserve.” This is essentially what Labour’s friends are saying about Labour’s leader, not Labour’s opponents.

Farrar is entirely correct – this is not a left vs right battle. And it’s actually pretty hard to find many leftwing or liberal voices that are defending Labour or Goff. They’ve all gone to ground, or are just incredibly unimpressive. For example, see this post on The Standard or MP Clare Curran’s ‘Gutted and Grieving’ post on the matter.

So today’s NZ Politics Daily is entirely about the Darren Hughes scandal and the fallout for Labour and Goff – and it begins with the critical commentary from the liberals and the left. A normal – and shorter – NZPD might return tomorrow. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

25 March 2011

The Darren Hughes scandal continues to roll on, and in fact to ‘spiral into a major problem for the party and its leader, Phil Goff’ as NZPA have described it. And the latest salacious report of Naked man seen makes this very clear. Obviously there’s plenty of mainstream media coverage of the saga, and much of it is included in today’s NZPD with various aspects of the story being covered in the articles below. But what should be particularly noticeable to anyone following the story in detail is that the blogosphere is doing a pretty good job of analysing what’s going on – hence I’ve ordered the blog material first today. Yesterday there were very good comment pieces from the likes of Andrew Geddis and Sue Bradford. Today, there are similarly thoughtful blog posts from Brian Edwards [no relation to me!] (The Herald offers the inside story on Darren Hughes’ ‘fateful night’) and Rex Widerstrom (On guilt, and the finding thereof) that provide a more sympathetic or perhaps reasoned counter to the material that coldly reports and dissects the scandal. Similarly, those bloggers that might not be particularly favourable to Labour and Hughes are actually still very reasoned and analytical. David Farrar has had some good posts on different aspects of the scandal (today: Did the Goffice lie to the media), and even the Labour-friendly Standard has some reasoned criticisms of Goff’s muddled management of the scandal – see: Hughes stood down.

24 March 2011

There’s really only one political story in New Zealand politics today – the continuing saga about allegations towards Labour MP Darren Hughes. And now the scandal has started to shift into questions about the political management and leadership of Phil Goff. The latest development in the story is the decision for Hughes to step down from his portfolios (temporarily) while the police investigation continues. Obviously there is ongoing speculation about whether Hughes will ever come back to those portfolios, whether he might be forced to resign from Parliament, and what damage this will do to the so-called ‘rising star’s’ political career.

For a thorough overview of the story including the latest developments, probably the best one article is on the Stuff website: Darren Hughes stands aside from portfolios. Similarly, the Herald story, Hughes stood down from portfolios, also does a good job of covering the latest developments. But it was John Armstrong’s first article of the day – Labour leader on trial as well – which really started to shift the focus from Hughes to Goff, and this seems to be catching on. Armstrong questions Goff's management of the crisis and asks ‘Why did the Labour leader not immediately stand Hughes down from his roles as Labour's chief whip and education spokesman two weeks ago when the MP told him he was the subject of a police investigation?’ Others are now asking similar questions and raising other issues of alleged double standards, since Goff has been ruthless in pursuing any scandals relating to the private and political lives of other party’s MPs. Hence speculation about Goff’s hold on the Labour leadership has never been stronger. Vernon Small’s article, Hughes case a timely diversion for National says the prognosis is bleak for Hughes, Goff and Labour.

There are plenty of other must-read items on the allegations and scandal – but here’s just a few. Labour Party insider Phil Quin is astounded by Labour’s poor handling of the scandal – see: Explaining myself over Hughes, and in particular, argues ‘If Hughes is completely innocent, he does not appear so by going to ground. He needs to stanch the bleeding by addressing the allegations directly’. Scott Yorke argues that the only way that Hughes will survive the allegations ‘is if the police announce that the complaint made against Hughes was a false one’ – see: Enter Judith Stage Left? Chris Ford provides a nice summary of the history of political scandal in New Zealand.

And, my own analysis is available too. Yesterday I blogged: Darren Hughes scandal – what’s the future for him? I argued that the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ does not apply in parliamentary politics, and that New Zealand parliamentary politics and competition increasingly revolves around negative politics and the pursuit of dirt and allegations about political opponents. I’ve also given a number of media interviews on the topic today, and I’m scheduled to appear on TV1’s Close Up programme tonight. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

23 March 2011

The principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ does not apply in parliamentary politics. Members of Parliament do not have the luxury of simply requesting that all legal avenues be followed before public and political judgements are made. In just this one parliamentary term, politician scandals involving law-breaking or otherwise have been abundant – leading to resignations and serious demotions involving Richard Worth, Pansy Wong, Phil Heatley, David Garrett, Shane Jones, Chris Carter, and now possibly Darren Hughes. It’s too early to be sure what is likely to happen to Darren Hughes, but there’s a significant chance of resignation from the list MP. Ultimately what will determine Darren Hughes’ fate is whether any criminal charges are brought against him and whether he faces a conviction. If so, he will surely resign, and his political career will almost certainly be over. [Read more below]

Political scandal is back in the headlines – this time with allegations about the Labour MP Darren Hughes. As usual, the people with any actual knowledge of the allegations are not saying much, so there is not a lot of information about the scandal in the media or blogosphere – even though there are plenty of articles and blog posts. The two most authoritative accounts are: Tracy Watkins’ article Police investigate Labour MP Darren Hughes and Claire Trevett’s version, 'I have done nothing wrong' – MP. But a more revealing but unsubstantiated account is on the blog of Phil Quin, who has a lot of senior Labour Party contacts – see: How the Labour MP should respond to the emerging gay sexual harassment scandal. From the mainstream media we seem to know that a complaint has been made which police are currently investigating. The complainant is an 18-year-old male who was a ‘Youth MP’ at Parliament for a Labour MP in 2010 (hence people are Googling this information to get his name). The complaint relates to something that apparently happened at Darren Hughes’ inner-city Wellington residence, which he shares with deputy leader Annette King. The allegations result from something that happened two weeks ago. Since then a search warrant has been issued for the house, and Police took away items. According to Phil Quin’s blog post – which is unsubstantiated – ‘the alleged scandal contains at least the following elements: The MP made unwanted sexual advances towards an 18-year male after an official function; The MP is gay or bisexual, but has concealed the fact; He has a drinking problem’.

Of interest in the blogosphere, political scientist and activist Quentin Findlay ponders whether the Green Party could ever enter into any coalition or support arrangement with the National Party – see: unf**k the World – The Perils of Being Green. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

22 March 2011

There’s been a lot going on in NZ politics today, and so it’s not possible to adequately refer to all the important items in today’s NZPD. Stories and analysis about the economic position of the government have dominated, with speculation on what the Government is going to do in the upcoming Budget to finance the rebuild and meet its costs. References to the Ruth Richardson’s 1991 so-called ‘Mother of all budgets” are quickly being drawn on – especially by journalists and political opponents. Yet going on today’s stories it actually seems likely that the differences between the 1991 and 2011 budgets will be much more significant than any similarities. For a start, this government seems determined to use increased government borrowing as its preferred mechanism, but more importantly, any cuts to spending look likely to hit hardest on the National Party’s most valuable electoral constituency - middle-income voters. In contrast, the 1991 Budget was firmly opposed to government borrowing in favour of swinging cuts – especially in social spending – and the main victims were therefore beneficiaries and low-income earners – supposedly voters that the then National Government were prepared to sacrifice. In this regard, the most important item today is John Armstrong’s Budget likely to be stingy effort. Armstrong says the only resemblance between the 1991 and 2011 budgets will be the general austerity involved – there will be no ‘radical and sweeping policy changes’. Other reports also show that the Government is not planning to put other major projects on hold, and is ruling out benefit and superannuation cuts – see, for example, Rebuild ‘must not stall Auckland’. Another story suggests that it will actually be ‘pet coalition projects’ that will be axed.

The Labour Party, however, is already unconvincingly attempting to label the 2011 Budget as ‘extreme’, ‘dangerous’, and a ‘flip-flop’ by National – see: Budget could be most radical since 1990s. Yet another interesting commentary – Christchurch earthquake slams Budget – suggests that ‘focus groups told National that debt was looming as an election-issue’, but spending restraint will be incredibly difficult when social spending increased ‘by more than $7b in the past two years’.

The politicisation of the situation in Christchurch is also increasing. Recently the Labour Party has become more assertive about the rights of the local businesspeople – see: Civil Defence blasted over Christchurch protest and Petty dig backfires on MP. A more amusing must-read political story is about how blogger Scott Yorke (of Imperator Fish) started a significant Twitter conversation in relation to Melissa Lees’ attempt to denounce Phil Goff’s supposed politcisation of the Earthquake remembrance ceremony. Sacastically labeling Phil Goff as “evil”, ‘Scott Yorke got the ball rolling by suggesting Mr Goff's greatest offence by wearing the red tie was the fact that it was casual Friday’ – see: John Hartevelt’s article in the Waikato Times, Evil Phil has everyone a twitter (not currently online). [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

21 March 2011

The National Government is now receiving more criticism for its role in the Christchurch recovery and rebuild operation. Today Tracy Watkins has strongly criticised the Government’s handling of the Rugby World Cup issue, and ponders whether ‘the hyper-reliance in the Key Government on risk management, and on tightly controlling the flow of information’ will lead to further problems in its management – see: How Key's team dropped the ball. And in the Sunday Star Times, John Hartevelt has argued that National ‘seems to have lost some of its moral-political bearings’, especially in ‘dishing out cash to rebuild an uninsured part of a debt-laden’ sports stadium business – see: Austerity applies everywhere but elite rugby. This is analysed, also, on the Imperator Fish blog: Corporate Welfare Watch. A much more extensive examination of how the rebuild will be governed was published by the Herald on Sunday – see Maria Slade’s lengthy article, Paying for Christchurch: Uncle Bob wants you. The most interesting aspect is the assertion that neither the government or city council will entertain the prospect of a sell off of local shareholdings in assets like the local port, airport and electricity company – as promoted by the Business Roundtable. Gerry Brownlee is quoted as saying: ‘I've actually never known the Business Roundtable to say anything sensible’. Similarly, private-public partnerships are nearly ruled out in the rebuild. Colin James deals with the growing economic problems that the country is facing in his column Knowledge, not cows and tourists. James manages to write a column that contains not just pessimistic warnings but also blue-sky thinking – he suggests that the Government needs a creative plan for the future of the economy that is more about ‘high-knowledge-intensive activities’ than ‘cows and Chinese tourists’. He also surveys how the recent natural disasters have impacted on the Government’s popularity.

18 March 2011

Maori politics is an increasingly important and fascinating part of the New Zealand political scene, yet there are very few insightful and informed political commentators that specialise in this topic. Fortunately, there is an impressive rising talent studying at Victoria University – Morgan Godfery, who has a blog, Maui St, which is always worth reading, as it is frequently updated with possibly the best comment and analysis on Maori politics around. I’m amazed that the mainstream media hasn’t yet snapped him up. (As usual, this isn’t to say that I endorse his opinions, but that his analysis is incredibly valuable and useful). Anyhow, today Godfery has four must-read blog posts: (1) Brief thoughts on the Native Affairs’ poll; (2) On Hone Harawira’s new party (again); (3) Poor Phil, and (4) The Hikoi’s coming. Within these posts, Godfery analyses the very interesting – and underreported – opinion poll results from this week’s Native Affairs programme, argues in favour of – and predicts – Hone Harawira forming ‘a new left party rather than an alternative Maori party’, and explains why the Labour Party has ruled out working with any party involving Harawira: ‘Ruling out Harawira was a dog whistle to middle New Zealanders (i.e. swing voters) who find Hone, for lack of a better term, personally offensive’.

The Christchurch earthquake recovery and rebuild keeps spawning all sorts of important and interesting political news, events, analysis and disagreement – and there’s plenty today. Of particular interest is the nexus between politics and religion brought up by the exposure on the No Right Turn blog that the government's Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Trust is promoting religion – see: Against government promotion of religion. No Right Turn argues that ‘if you donate to the trust, your money will be used to rebuild churches (regardless of their classification as heritage buildings) and provide religious texts. That's perfectly appropriate for a private body (though it should not be granted charitable status). But it is absolutely inappropriate for government’. Will de Cleene agrees – see Otautahi Rising, and suggests that this is part of a trend: ‘that's this National government's modus operandi, isn't it, sucking up to the churches?’. Matt Nippert takes up the issue in today’s NBR – see: Quake charity accused of blending church and state. He approaches charity boss Mark Weldon, who ‘sidesteps’ the criticism over the blending of church and state, but argues that ‘the Trust is not an instrument of the state’ and that the inclusion of religious objective is ‘a pragmatic move to draw in more funds from overseas’.

The issue of how the Government is going to fund the rebuild of Christchurch is now taking shape, with Bill English being reported as ruling out a temporary levy or large cuts to government spending, in favour of increased borrowing: ‘English yesterday conceded the deficit would balloon by almost 50 per cent to $16b – equivalent to 8 per cent of gross domestic product – from the previously forecast $11.1b’ – see: Quake cost $5b blow to Budget and also English on budget deficit: ‘We’ll borrow more’. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

17 March 2011

Law and order seems to be suddenly re-emerging as a major political issue in this election year. There’s a thoughtful editorial in the ODT: Reversing a right in justice about the upcoming reform of bail laws. But even more interesting and important is the fact that Chief Justice Sian Elias has made a ‘stinging criticism of the Government's sweeping reforms of the criminal justice system’ – see: Judges at loggerheads with Govt over new law. This is significant stuff, and for a much more lengthy but insightful and informed analysis of it, see legal expert and blogger Graeme Edgeler’s Hidden in plain sight.

In terms of the foreshore and seabed issue, much of the coverage and debate focuses (rather superficially in my view) on accusations of racism – see, for example, NZPA: Race row over Act comments on Foreshore. Surprisingly, Hone Harawira probably had the most sober analysis of it all: ‘I'm offended by a lot of what goes on in this place but if you jumped up and down about everything you'd be jumping up and down all the time. You pick and choose your fights and I think that was the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from someone like Hilary Calvert’. The best general coverage of yesterday’s debate in Parliament is found in Claire Trevett’s article, Opponents put up roadblocks to bill, especially in terms of the filibustering of the Greens, Labour and Act.

In a very similar vein to Chris Trotter, John Minto has put forward an argument for rebuilding Christchurch ‘as a public infrastructure project’ – see: Abolish The Dole, Create Jobs, And Rebuild Christchurch. Counterposed to this, Minto says that Labour and National have essentially the same ‘policies on rebuilding Christchurch: ‘we have the usual pathetic squabbling as National and Labour dance around each other taunting and bickering. They try to convince us they are as different as black and white but they are both the same shade of shabby grey. Their plans involve handing vast sums to the private sector to contract and subcontract work as each layer clips the ticket down to the poorly paid skilled and semi-skilled workers who will do the actual work’.

Minto also puts forward a useful case for Hone Harawira’s new party to be a working class oriented party for Maori and pakeha, instead of yet another ethnic-focused party – see: Critical Decisions Ahead for Hone Harawira. Meanwhile Willie Jackson – who is really a Maori nationalist these days rather than a leftie, says people like Minto and Sue Bradford are in ‘cuckooland’ if they ‘think Harawira might be contemplating a move to the left’ and that he will naturally build another Maori nationalist party.

On the subject of the political direction of the Greens, Claire Browning has a thoughtful discussion on how the party might rid itself of its ‘woolly’ presentation of its different ideological elements (eg social justice vs environmentalism) – see: Imagining a green manifesto. She appears to advocate a shift of emphasis towards environmental issues over lower priority social justice, inequality, human rights, etc. Other NZPD highlights include: David Farrar is now running an actively-updating page listing electoral candidates for the general election; Gordon Campbell asks why the Parliamentary Library is stocking airport novels for MPs – see: Larceny, Lace and the Legislature. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

16 March 2011

The focus of many political commentators over the last day has been Phil Goff’s ruling out of working with Hone Harawira – and there doesn’t appear to be anyone that is impressed. Two newspaper editorials chide Goff for hypocrisy and inconsistency over Labour’s position towards coalition possibilities with the parties of Harawira and Winston Peters – see: Goff should choose principle over Peters and Doesn't play nicely with others. TV3’s Duncan Garner has the best analysis and reporting on the matter, suggesting that Goff has broken his own caucus rules – see: Goff back-pedals to snub Harawira. Garner quotes a senior Labour MP as saying: ‘I was really surprised, I thought caucus had agreed not to rule anyone out. I saw last night Phil changed that. Weird’. NZPA’s coverage is also worth a read: Harawira expects parties to call if numbers needed. // The foreshore and seabed issue is the big political news of the day – mostly due to the Marine and Coastal Area legislation coming to its final stages in Parliament, Hilary Calvert giving an interesting speech to Parliament last night, and a Hikoi against the bill arriving in Auckland. Numbers on the march are much smaller than the first hikoi against the Labour Government in 2004. Apparently the hikoi started with 350 marching, dropping to just 200 going over the Auckland Harbour Bridge today (compared to 3000 in 2004). The original hikoi had 20-40,000 when it marched into Wellington. See: Foreshore hikoi due in Auckland. Meanwhile, the debate in Parliament over the Marine and Coastal Area Bill has been a mixture of passion, confusion, and the bizarre. See for example, Act MP Hilary Calvert’s speech. The standout quote from her speech is: ‘Historical use of the seabed any significant distance from the shore seems impossible to prove, and allowing for title over it to be granted over it to iwi allows for unjust and potentially divisive future claims. No one historically crawled about on the seabed miles from shore. There was just no chance of anybody holding their breath from 1840 til now on the seabed. It’s not gonna happen’. What’s more, according to Martin Kay’s article, Parties seek to delay controversial foreshore bill, ‘Calvert has submitted more than 300 amendments to the bill’ to slow down its passage, while ‘Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has put up more than 75 pages of amendments’ to make it work. // There are a few important articles to read on economic matters: NZ employers squeeze more out of fewer workers in 2010; RNZ: Economic headwinds for government akin to 1970s; and Broader measures needed to kick-start economy. // On a more superficial level – issues of law and order continues to be an important societal issue, and so the Government is proposing Tougher bail tests for drug crimes. Listen also to RNZ: Accusations government electioneering with bail changes. Naturally, the No Right Turn blog puts up the arguments against: Eroding the right to bail. // And a bit of self-promotion today – I’ve included two of my own monthly columns from Fairfax’s Dunedin weekly newspaper, Dscene – see: Politics in the face of disaster and MMP working for city. // [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

15 March 2011

The Labour Party will apparently refuse to form a government after the general election if it is reliant on any political party involving the radical MP Hone Harawira. Phil Goff has been pronouncing this over the past day, which has analysts and pundits pondering whether this latest position reflects principle, posturing, or just stupidity. For a sincerely skeptical analysis of where the Labour Party is at, or isn’t at – see the Imperator Fish blog post Goff Needs To Learn About Gun Safety, so entitled because of Goff’s propensity to shoot himself in the foot. It’s worth quoting at length: ‘To me this demonstrates a crisis in confidence within the leadership of Labour. There is no consistency in the messages they are sending to the electorate, because they are floundering and bereft of ideas. Nothing they do seems to impress the voters. So they keep trying new things. Goff's "me too" approach to politicking just shows him to be weak and lacking a firm vision for the country. His comments about Liz Hurley, and suggestions that extrajudicial means should be used to deal with looters, all indicate Goff may be more reactionary than visionary. They also piss off a lot of people who should be falling over to vote Labour’. Speculation is also gathering about whether senior Labour MP Trevor Mallard will retire from politics this year, with iPredict even launching stocks today about this possibility – see: Will Trevor Mallard retire at the election? The logic of this new prediction stock is explained: ‘Mr Mallard has been chosen for this contract because he is highly experienced in reading politics and because it is well known in Parliament that he has advised colleagues that he will not seek re-election this year if he does not believe Labour can win’. Other must-read items today, include Colin James’ take on the Act Party’s directions and dilemmas – see: ACT: when principled is populist. The gist of the analysis is a comparison between the imminent release of John Boscawen’s (and Heather Roy’s) consumer law review/rewrite which is based on market liberal principles and John Boscawen’s high-profile campaign against the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill – which James suggests is really only superficially about Act Party principles but actually ‘rings a populist bell’. Quite simply the problem for Act is that there ‘is not right now a 5 per cent core vote for free markets’. In terms of the Christchurch earthquake, the most interesting argument made for a while comes from Chris Trotter in the Press today – see: Sense of foreboding over Refugee Christchurch's recovery. Trotter suggests that ‘the social- democratic political culture of the pre-Rogernomics era’ would have allowed for a much more effective response to the crisis in Christchurch. He argues, for example, that the old Ministry of Works would have handled the rebuild expertly, but more than that, he says that since the mid-1980s ‘New Zealanders have witnessed the wholesale transfer of economic power from the State to the private sector. Our ability to act decisively in our own interest - through publicly owned institutions - has been decisively diminished’ and that ‘In place of the conscious public activity which gave us the economic and social infrastructure of a modern nation, we have substituted the unconscious co-ordination of the market’. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

14 March 2011

John Armstrong has done an excellent job covering the Act Party conference at the weekend. The following four reports by him are worth reading for a comprehensive idea of what happened: (1) Hide: We’d raise money by mining national parks; (2) ‘You need us’ pitch falling on deaf ears; (3) Brash speech reminiscent of 2004 address and (4) Votes before friends, so the boot goes in. From these reports it seems that ‘much of the conference was taken up with debate on Maori rights’. In the second article, Armstrong discusses the party’s battle between principle and populism within the party and how this was at ‘the core of last year's ructions within the party’, and that whenever the party deviates onto such ‘populist bandwagons’ it is then ‘racked with guilt, and increasingly recrimination, over its failure to stick to its principles’. And to get a sense of how much internal damage this has caused, Andrea Vance’s article, Hide says Act far from finished, cites party president Chris Simmons admitting that finances aren’t healthy and that the ‘party is down 55 members, from just under 1000’. For some context, it’s worth remembering that Act used to claim to have ‘probably the second highest political membership of any party in New Zealand’, with the suspect figure of 14,000 often bandied around, but in reality, a more credible 5,000 membership number was likely (see: http://bit.ly/fAp5Oz).

But by far the most interesting column on Act is by Fran O’Sullivan, who seems to be playing the role of a conduit for those on the right that want the party to either be totally reformed or to be replaced by a new vehicle for neoliberalism. O’Sullivan paints a picture of a deeply damaged Act Party that needs to be either euthanasiased or ‘de-Hided’. She even suggests that Hide’s ability to win Epsom is in doubt amongst National’s leadership and pushes some secret polling data that purports that Epsom voters – especially females – would be much more inclined to vote for John Banks or Don Brash than Rodney Hide – and that these two players are almost ready to jump into the contest. She promotes these old warhorses as potential new leaders for Act or a new party to replace Act - see: Hide’s antics leave spot in Epsom wide open. Meanwhile Danyl McLoughlin writes at the Dim-Post that such talk of leadership change is futile while bigger problems remain: ‘The ACT or Reform Party preferences are almost all elderly men at the very end of their careers. Rodney Hide may be a truly dreadful leader but ACT’s problems run deeper than that, and a replacement party will experience the same challenge. The movement itself is intellectually bankrupt. While it can attract money from very wealthy old men it can’t attract new talent’ – see: Die already.

John Armstrong filed another fairly interesting article from the Act conference, which is only tangentially about the Act Party, but really focuses on political marketing, reporting on an advertising exec’s take on the marketing of each party – see: Adman tells Act rival Goff should just be himself.

11 March 2011

The new Hone Harawira party is starting to take shape, and it’s looking to be more of a ‘Maori Party Mark II’ than the highly speculated ‘new left party’ hoped for by some. Harawira is currently holding a series of meetings about the new party, and according to this NZPA article, Harawira to hold meetings for new party from today, not only will it be ‘be Maori-led and Maori-focussed’ but Harawira is quoted as saying, ‘I've been talking to people like Willie Jackson, John Tamihere, Sandra Lee, Donna Awatere and all sorts of other MPs, including Pakeha ones, over the last 12-18 months’. The new ethnic-based party may also contest all of the Maori electorates, as Harawira is putting forward the argument that his ex-colleagues have already broken their side of their separation agreement – see these two posts of Harawira’s own website: It didn’t have to be personal and Kaikohe or Siberia. * In order to understand the politics of the new Marine and Coastal Areas Bill, Matt Nippert’s NBR article is a must-read – see: Maori Party wants more foreshore, which points out that the bill’s promoter’s, the Maori Party, have indicated that the legislation is only a first step, and the party will revisit core elements of it in future coalition negotiations. Stephen Franks is quoted as pointing out that the legislation is disingenuously written in an ambiguous way: ‘It’s so one group can read it and think “they’re looking after us”, and another group can do the same – and these groups are diametrically opposed’. * In the Herald, John Drinnan provides much more detail about the Government’s ‘loan’ to Mediaworks – see: Radio deal a mockery of free market. He argues that it’s a ‘sweetheart deal’ by a National Party that is ‘reverting to old ways of doing business’ – ‘so much for free market forces’. In this regard, Imperator Fish argues We Are All Socialists Now, which is a point also humourously taken by on Dim-Post: ‘Here’s an idea for when Labour gets back into power. They could set up a Corporate Welfare Working Group and ask John Minto, Chris Trotter and Keith Locke to look at ways to reducing chronic long-term welfare dependency in our finance, telecommunications and media companies’ – see: The dependency trap. * There are two very interesting items today that delve into the question of why a military man has been recruited as the next Governor General – see Geoff Fischer’s A military Governor-General and Chris Trotter’s A Reluctant Jeremiad. * The Act Party conference starts tomorrow – (programme here) and today’s Dominion Post editorial argues for the party to give up the moderation and populism and return to principle: ‘Better to go down fighting for what it believes in than get run over trying to clamber on to every passing populist bandwagon. After all, the point of a political party is to advance its ideas, not to provide lifetime employment to its parliamentary representatives’ – see: ACT party should return to its roots. * There’s not a lot of interesting political news to report about the Christchurch earthquake – but David Farrar points out that Phil Goff has been channelling the Sensible Sentencing Trust in promoting/joking that Christchurch looters should be put before firing squads or made to do hard labour for 18 hours a day – see: I’ve seem to have hit a nerve . [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

10 March 2011

The must-read political item of the day is Audrey Young’s Herald article, Parties views often similar, which succinctly and clearly explains the basic differences between the parliamentary parties in terms of the foreshore and seabed issue. Of particular interest is her insightful assertion that ‘the parties are a lot closer in some respects than their speeches would suggest’, because despite all the sound and fury, the parliamentary parties agree on a lot more about the issue than they disagree about. An opinion poll is also out today indicating the views of Maori towards the proposed new legislation – see: NZPA: Most Maori against new foreshore policy - poll. Apparently, ‘Only 11% of Maori think the Government's new foreshore and seabed policy is an acceptable solution to the controversial issue’, while ‘31.3% said it was "unacceptable", with 9.9% saying it was totally unacceptable, 37.4% were neutral about the policy’. This is very useful information, but the issue is rather more complex than an ‘agree or disagree’ question can ascertain about this issue. Unfortunately the poll didn’t seek to determine support or opposition amongst Maori for the status quo. It is commonly assumed that ‘all Maori hate the Foreshore and Seabed Act’, yet the only results I’ve seen for a poll of Maori on the proposed bill in 2004 showed that a large proportion of Maori (45%; a plurality of those polled) actually supported Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed legislation. But another interesting statistic from today’s poll is that ‘more than 71% of respondents believed they were inadequately or poorly consulted on issues by their iwi’ – which again points to the fact that Maoridom does not speak with one voice nor have the same political and economic interests, as is so often assumed. Further signs that the Christchurch earthquake is no longer a ‘politics free zone’ were to be found yesterday in parliamentary debate. Derek Cheng says that ‘The picture of a harmonious bipartisan approach to the earthquake recovery fractured yesterday as Labour continued to accuse the Government of unnecessarily causing Christchurch families anxiety and uncertainty’ and that ‘the previous decorum in the House during question time quickly descended yesterday into heated exchanges’ – see: Christchurch earthquake: Contemptible to keep facts from Canterbury, says PM. And today Labour launched the Christchurch Earthquake bulletin, however as the political editor of the ODT, Dene Mackenzie (@mackersline), exclaimed on Twitter, ‘16 days after quake labour MPs finally announce they r doing something to help constituents, #wherehvtheybeen’. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

09 March 2011

There seems to be almost universal agreement on the choice of new Governor General - Jerry Mateparae. Certainly newspaper editorials have praised him and the decision – see for example: The Herald Editorial and Dominion Editorial. The Herald makes the interesting point that a military man has been selected as head of state, and explains this well: ‘It reflects perhaps a revival of public interest in the services. Their recent missions, notably in East Timor and in Afghanistan, have been cause for pride. The open celebration of Corporal Willie Apiata's Victoria Cross has given a good impression of the SAS and General Mateparae has agreed to make public a little more information on the special force's activities in our name’. Meanwhile Barry Soper on Newstalk ZB suggests – humorously, I think – that this is a brave aspect of the Government’s decision: ‘It's an incredible leap of faith for the Government when you think about it. Here's the Middle East rising up at the moment against military tyrants who've taken over the reigns of power and here's the Government here making a former military chief the country's Don’. But the Dominion Post editorial reminds us that the Governor General’s role is mostly just ceremonial: ‘It is the lot of governors-general to become patrons of dozens of organisations, sign endless documents, open new buildings, host big gatherings and represent New Zealand overseas’. Nonetheless, dissent has been voiced – most notably from John Minto – see: Minto questions Mateparae appointment. Minto points out that Mateparae has actually played a forceful and central role in pushing some controversial and significant political issues – not only has he been forceful in pushing for military intervention, but he has been ‘involved in overseeing two controversial pieces of legislation which would seriously encroach on the civil liberties and freedoms of New Zealanders’. In a different way, Audrey Young has raised questions about the appropriateness of Mateparae continuing as head spy until he takes up the new role – see: Not right for next Governor-General to keep spy agency role. Elsewhere in politics, speculation continues about Hone Harawira’s future in politics – the best two items to read about this are Hone: New Maori party likely by April and Oh F$@# ! Hone-no-mates starts Plan B. And the NBR has revealed details of the Labour Party’s new logo, which features a fancy "a" and a red fern – see: Labour re-brands its logo and Labour’s logo revamper revealed. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

08 March 2011

The breaking political story of the day is the announcement of former Defence Force head Jerry Mateparae as the new Governor-General. But earthquake politics otherwise dominate – there are three big issues at the moment: heritage buildings, the neglect of the eastside, and the day of mourning for Christchurch. In terms of the heritage and rebuild question, there’s an interesting post on The Standard that argues for the Labour Party to make the rebuild of Christchurch – and other metropolitan urban development – its main election issue. This would require the party to return to its ‘social-democratic urban planning traditions’ – see: Cometh the Hour. Chris Trotter is at his thoughtful and considered best in his Press column, New city must inspire its citizens. He argues that ‘the future shape of Christchurch is an inescapably political question’ and ‘If the process is not democratic, if the people (and that includes the people of Bexley and Aranui every bit as much as the people of Ilam and Fendalton) are not drawn into the process’ then Christchurch will be rebuilt to the demands and imagination of ‘bureaucrats and businessmen’. Trotter has also penned a must-read blog post on the question of whom in society the media serves, especially railing against the use of bank economists for analysis – see: Whose Media?. Similarly, for those interested in the future of television broadcasting – and whether there is any possibility for public broadcasting, then John Drinnan’s recent article is essential, but pessimistic reading – see: Pay model the future for TVNZ digital. There are two very interesting health items to read today: NZ children's dental health still among worst and Doc visits - why is it so expensive after hours? The first covers a new Ministry of Health that shows the dental health of young NZ children is amongst the worst in the developed world, and the second asks why we pay so much to visit a GP outside normal working hours. Colin James has two insightful columns today: Crisis! Time to Act (for some) and The mostly unseen power of a Power. The second James column is a very positive political obituary for Simon Power, noting the huge gap it leaves in National. A Press editorial also salutes Power for departing while at the top of his political career, noting that far too many MPs overstay their time in politics and ‘Invariably these politicians cut a sad figure around Parliament’ – see: Power move sensible. Similarly, there’s a bit of debate going on about MP ages and whether Jamie-Lee Rose (25) is too young to be an MP. In the NBR, Niko Kloeten notes some previous young starters: Marilyn Waring (22), Mike Moore (23), Simon Upton (23), Darren Hughes (24), Nick Smith (25), Phil Goff (28), Deborah Morris (MP and minister at 26) – see: New MP hits back at age slurs. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

07 March 2011

New Zealand has had relatively few by-elections in recent times, so normally you might expect to there to have been an avalanche of interesting news, analysis, and opinion to report on the Monday following the Botany by-election. But, no – the dreary and overshadowed Auckland by-election has yielded little of interest. And Vernon Small quite rightly reports that ‘no-one can claim victory from the result’ even though virtually all parties have been doing exactly that – see: Low voter turnout keeps Botany blue. There was some interesting voter behaviour to be found amongst the various voting booths though – the electorate turned out to be rather polarised. David Farrar reported that National’s Jamie-Lee Ross had his best result in ‘Howick, where Ross got over 68%. The worst place was Clover Park where Ross got 4.7% only, and Wood got 90.4%’ – see: More Botany analysis. The earthquake is still dominating most of the political media and blogosphere, although people seem to be running out of interesting and relevant things to say about the disaster and its politics. The most insightful from the weekend was Anthony Hubbard’s Sunday Star Times column, The facade of tyranny, which looked at the relationship between politics and natural disasters, using some international research to make some important points about the relevance of politics. Meanwhile, on Red Alert, MP Sue Moroney declares the Ceasefire Broken, blaming National. The blog, Left Right Out, has two very good posts relating to religion and the Christchurch earthquake aftermath – see: New Ceremonies for Old Skin and Paying for Christchurch’s Rebuild. The arguments are put forward for secular and humanist ceremonies to commemorate disasters, and also to change the Charities Act so that “promotion of religion” is no longer a charitable purpose. Another heavily political blog post worth reading is Steven Cowan’s critique of Mayor Bob Parker’s apparent ‘PR drive in an attempt to convince the angry residents of the working class suburbs of eastern Christchurch, that he is “one of us”.’ – see: The Working Class Hero! [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

04 March 2011

The must-read item for NZ politicos from the last 24 hours is Colin James’ summary of the state of the Act Party in the lead up to its annual conference – see: A very hard ACT to follow. James asks whether the party can ‘rebuild to a 6-7 per cent party, counterbalancing the Greens on the left?’ with the preliminary answer that ‘the signs for ACT are pointing to extinction’. The problem is ‘the seesaw ACT has constructed for itself: principle at one end, popular pitch at the other. How long it can back-and-forth along this seesaw without falling off is the party's great challenge’. Meanwhile in the Herald Derek Cheng says that tomorrow’s by-election is the byelection everyone forgot. NZPA’s article quotes John Key making the point that ‘the usual poor voter turnout in by-elections could be even lower this time because of the intense focus on the Christchurch earthquake. The party will be a lot more interested in the percentage of the vote its candidate Jamie-Lee Ross can capture over Labour and the other hopefuls in the contest for the safe National seat’ rather than the raw majority figure, which will be much reduced – see: National ready for reduced majority in Botany. There’s two good items about Hone Harawira’s new political project – Morgan Godfery writes on his Maui St blog about The trouble with a movement, drawing attention to Harawira’s choice between building a ‘movement’ or a proper ‘political party’ and what the differences entail. He also discusses the likelihood, desirability and nature of a new left party led by Harawira. And Gordon Campbell has a good column in the Wellingtonian newspaper (not currently online) entitled Harawira poised to be kingmaker? In terms of ‘earthquake economics and politics’ – the most interesting today is by Matthew Hooton in the NBR – I’ll pay higher taxes for Christchurch. Hooton argues that National’s political management of the rebuild debate was initially good, until the prime minister broke its original line. He also favours ‘a broad-based temporary earthquake tax’. On the same topic, David Farrar crunches the numbers on how Working for Families could be re-configured after the next election, with cuts at the top, which would ‘leave Labour in the ludicrous position of having to argue that a family on $120,000 should not receive a tax cut but should receive welfare’. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

03 March 2011

‘Earthquake economics’ has been dominating debate, analysis and reporting of NZ politics in the media and blogosphere over the last day. The question of how much the earthquake is going to cost, and how the government – and hence, ‘us’ – is going to be able to pay for it is starting to be fought over. There is especially a lot of discussion and disagreement about how and whether the Working for Families social programme can and should be cut down in size – especially at the high end. But for some, any discussion of politics is a “no no” at the moment, and below there is a discussion of whether the disaster is being ‘politicised’ or whether New Zealand should continue to be a ‘politics free zone’. For some leftists the answer is obvious – in fact there is no question to be asked – for ‘everything is political’, and so some very strong arguments are now being made about the class basis of the earthquake’s impact and the response to it. In particular there is growing anger and sadness about the neglect of the poorer eastern suburbs of Christchurch. In terms of this, the must-read item is by Christchurch resident Peter Hyde, who’s email about the socio-economic bias to the recovery has been circulating around the internet and has now been published in the NZ Herald. [Continue reading more about these and other highlights of NZ Politics Daily below]

02 March 2011

Why has Simon Power decided to retire? Who will replace him as Minister of Justice? And more importantly, who will replace him as the “next National Party leader”? In terms of the Christchurch earthquake, is it now being politicized for partisan advantage? Is the earthquake being used by the Government as a cover for ‘shock doctrine’ style economic reform? [Continue reading more about these and other highlights of NZ Politics Daily below]

01 March 2011

Just as liquefaction rose to the surface in the Christchurch earthquake, one blogger notes, the ‘political and economic reality of this earthquake is starting to come to the fore’. These political realities are increasingly being discussed in NZ political news and analysis. And, how are the politicians handling the Christchurch earthquake disaster? Colin James has a very good column in the Otago Daily Times today in which he judges the Prime Minister to have performed well in his communications with the nation so far. James even goes as far as comparing him favourable to Barack Obama. [Continue reading more about this and other highlights of NZ Politics Daily below]